GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Johannes Vermeer Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works, New York, 1997) c. 1665-1667 Walter Liedtke Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008) The fine, plain-weave linen support, which has been lined, has a threadcount of 14.7 x 14.3 per cm 2. Only fragments of the original tacking edges survive. The composition was laid in with light and dark areas. The ground is a thick, yellowish-white layer containing lead white; chalk, and possibly umber. The dark background and the deeper shadows of the girl's face, turban, and bodice were established with a mixture of black and earth pigments and further modeled with a paler, ocher color. The shadow of her nose was underpainted with red lake while the highlights on her nose, right cheek and forehead have a thick, cream colored underpaint.

The turban was painted with varying shades of an ultramarine and lead-white mixture; wet-in-wet, over which a blue glaze was applied, except in the highlights. A thin, off-white scumble of paint over the brown shadow of the girl's neck defines the pearl, and is painted more opaquely at the bottom where the pearl reflects the white collar. Small hairs from Vermeer's brush are found in the half-tones of the flesh areas. * Johannes Vermeer (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis - Washington and The Hague, 1995, edited by Arthur Wheelock) literature 25,5 x 19 cm. National Gallery, London The appearance of the young girl's turban within the context of Vermeer's seemingly quintessential Dutch oeuvre should not come as a complete surprise. Other objects of "Turkish" origin may be associated with the painter. Some of the carpets which appear as table coverings—contemporary painters rarely represented these precious imports lying on the ground—are of Turkish origin.

They must have been appreciated for their evocative floral motifs and the large mass of warm red color which enlivened the otherwise geometrical and cold interiors. However, we must not believe that anything called "Turkish" in contemporary accounts really came from that country. The term was loosely used to describe exotic imported objects which were much in vogue. In the inventory (29 February, 1676) taken shortly after the artist's death we find listed among other things: "a Turkish mantle of the aforesaid Sr. Vermeer," "a pair of Turkish trousers" and "a black Turkish mantle" all in the "great hallway" of his house. Some scholars have suggested that the two tronies in "Turkish dress" found in the kitchen could possibly have been by Vermeer's hand. Vermeer's women are often associated with the pearls eleven of them wear, so much that his oeuvre has become synonymous with the pearl.

In 1908, Jan Veth articulated a widespread sentiment while observing the Girl with a Pearl Earring: "More than with any other VERMEER one could say that it looks as if it were blended from the dust of crushed pearls." In the 17th century, pearls were an important status symbol. A careful consideration of the Girl with a Pearl Earring gives rise to the question of how far the painting is to be taken as a portrait. P. T. A. Swillens, who compiled the first exhaustive study of the artist's life and work in 1950, believed that one of the most important characteristics of a 17th-century portrait was its likeness. And although we can no longer judge of this anymore, the face would not be called a beauty in an aesthetic sense. Swillens writes that Vermeer made no attempt to idealize her. Contemporary scholars are not in agreement on the subject. According to Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. the painting is an "idealized study" which reveals Vermeer's "classical tendencies." Not a single sitter in Vermeer's extant paintings has ever been identified, including the young girl in the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Various critics believe that she may have been Vermeer's first daughter, Maria, who would have been about 12 or 13 years old in 1665-1667, the dates that specialists have assigned to the painting. However, this painting was certainly not a portrait in the 17th-century sense of the term, but rather a tronie. In any case, she resembles the model in Vermeer's Art of Painting (see above). The Girl with a Pearl Earring reemerged in the Netherlands 300 years after it left the artist's studio. Shortly after it was sold for next to nothing. The history of the acquisition of the Vermeer has by now become legendary. In 1881 Arnoldus Andries des Tombe purchased Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring at a sale at the Venduhuis der Notarissen in the Nobelstraat in The Hague for 2 guilders with a 30 cent premium. Unfortunately, the invoice, which was given to the Mauritshuis in 1944, has disappeared without a trace.

Thanks to a notice in the former daily newspaper Het Vaderland of 3 March 1903, in which the bequest was made public (pasted in the Mauritshuis' cuttings album), we know that Victor de Stuers had recognized the painting as a work by Vermeer. De Stuers was Des Tombe's neighbor—his collection in his residence at 24 Parkstraat was also open to all interested parties—and the two gentlemen had gone together to the auction preview. Des Tombe and De Stuers agreed not to bid against each other. After its acquisition, the badly neglected canvas was sent to Antwerp, where it was "restored" by the painter Van der Haeghen. In the Des Tombe family, however, the story was that Des Tombe and his friend De Stuers had seen a painting that "seemed rather beautiful but was too dirty to evaluate properly." In this version, it was only after the picture had been cleaned that the signature became visible, making clear the identity of the painter.

After Des Tombe's death on 16 December 1902 (his wife had died the year before and their marriage had remained childless) it turned out that he had secretly bequeathed 12 paintings to the Mauritshuis, including Vermeer's famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. (from Quentin Buvelot, "COLLECTING HISTORY: ON DES TOMBE, DONOR OF VERMEER'S GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING" in the Mauritshuis Bulletin, volume 17, no. 1, March 2004) The signature of the Girl with a Pearl Earring is located on the upper left corner. It was painted with a lighter toned pigment over the dark background but it is so faint that many spectators do not notice it and it is usually not visible in reproductions. Vermeer used light toned signatures in other paintings as well. The style too, is comparable to other signatures by the artist. Although the pigments of the signature cannot be analyzed due to the abraded paint layer, the Mauritshuis, where the painting is permanently housed, has always maintained that it is authentic. Beatrice Cenci 129 x 93 cm.

Grand Ducal Collection, Vaduz, Liechtenstein As art historian Robert Baldwin pointed out that there existed a "tradition of comparing beautiful women to jewels. In court culture, the beautiful woman took on a jewel-like preciousness and radiance which worked, ultimately, to represent an inner beauty beyond material splendor. (This is how jewels had long worked in Christian representations of the sacred, their richness and luminosity pointing to a celestial beauty.). In European court poetry, the lady was either described as jewel-like or said to surpass the beauty of all jewels." However, "Vermeer also went beyond a suspect material beauty by avoiding the extensive use of jewels seen in courtly portraits and representations of artists like Van Dyck and Mignard and by restricting himself to the simpler pearl, avoiding rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. More importantly, Vermeer painted everything with a cool, silvery palette and layered, translucent oil glazes, dissolving all material reality with a pearl-like luminosity.

Visualised this way, Vermeer's beautiful women, ornamented with pearls, took on the familiar, pearl-like beauty of contemporary love lyrics where outer loveliness dissolved into an inner radiance." Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Cunera van der Cock Frans van Mieris the Elder c. 1657-8 16 x 13.3 cm. National Gallery, London Although this portrait by fijnschilder (fine painter) Frans van Mieris has been linked with the Girl with a Pearl Earring, few works document so well how fundamentally diverse were the artistic means and goals so divergent from those of his contemporaries. It is true that Vermeer did share with the fijnschilders a common reservoir of motifs but it would be hard to enlist him as a true believer in their exasperated search of detail. Nor had the fijnschilders ever displayed the detached interest in the activities of light or the intricacies of pictorial design which are hallmarks of Vermeer's art.

As detailed as Vermeer's works may appear to the relaxed eye of the 21st-century viewer, the broadness of his painting technique contrasts with the microscopic rendering of detail which was the principal calling card of this school. His modeling is so generalized that the fabric of the girl's yellow garment has never been satisfactorily identified. Instead, the individual hairs of the fur trim in Van Mieris' picture (see detail below) have been rendered one by one to assure recognition. While such rendering induces the viewer to draw as close as possible to admire the work detail by detail, the Vermeer's more essential approach suggests the viewer to step back and relate to the image as a whole. Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Cunera van der Cock (detail) 16 x 13.3 cm. National Gallery, London The fijnschilder mode had reached such extremes because pupils were forever trying to outdo their masters in producing the most convincing illusion of surface textures. Curiously, the fijnschilder school evolved in the very years when the Dutch art market had begun to contract due to a downturn in the nation's economic conditions and subsequnetially exasperated by the war with France.

The once bustling art market was not only flooded with low-priced paintings by living artists but with works of previous generations which slowly worked their way back into the market as their original purchasers passed away. Instead of devising new tactics to abbreviate production time and beat competition, the fijnschilder took the opposite approach and invested unprecedented time and energy on each work, which, moreover, were usually very small. In fact, they targeted the tastes and pockets of the uppermost burgers whose wealth had not been adversely effected by the economic crisis but, on the contrary, had prospered as never before. Thus, it may not be unreasonable that the essential "simplicity" and sobriety of Vermeer's technique might not have been fully appreciated admist the dominant fijnschilder tastes of the day. While it is true that Vermeer's art was recognized among elite connoisseurs, he had gained neither the international reputation nor the prices of his competitors. Given its present iconic status, it may come as a surprise that the Girl with a Pearl Earring was uncovered only in 1881 after 200 years of neglect.

While it is true that Vermeer's name had been largely forgotten by mainstream art history, some of his flagship works had held their own in important European art collections even if a few had been attributed to other painters to augment their value. In the 17th century, a work of art work was seen through different eyes than today. First of all, the Girl with a Pearl Earring was not seen as a portrait but a tronie, a sort of characteristic bust-length figure whose power to capture the purchaser's eye, rather than the sitter's personal identity, was the artist's main concern. Tronies were made for the open market and sold in great numbers at low prices. As odd as it may seem, a painting's worth was often determined not only by its beauty or by its author's reputation. The hierarchical importance of subject matter was held in great consideration and a tronie such as the Girl with a Pearl Earring was definitely on the lower rungs of the ladder, not too distant from landscape and the lowest of all categories, still life. This mind set may be reflected in the relatively low price the Girl with a Pearl Earring may have fetched in the 1696 Amsterdam auction of 21 Vermeer paintings.

Some scholars conjecture that it corresponds to "a tronie in antique dress, uncommonly artful" sold at 46 guilders, a trifle if compared to the equally-sized Milkmaid or the Woman Holding a Balance which earned 175 and 155 guilders respectively. However, is not out of the question that it was another tronie sold in the same auction for only 17 guilders. Johan Larson, a Hague/London sculptor was known to have had another Vermeer tronie valued at only 10 guilders. In deference to the category, a Rembrandt tronie was sold for a mere 7 guilders in the same sale as the two Vermeer's. The Young Mother Johannes Vermeer Paints Girl with a Pearl Earring | World History Project 1665 to 1667 Johannes Vermeer Paints Girl with a Pearl Earring The painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch: Het Meisje met de Parel) is one of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's masterworks and as the name implies, uses a pearl earring for a focal point. The painting is in The Mauritshuis in The Hague.

It is sometimes referred to as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa". In general, very little is known about Vermeer and his works. This painting is signed "IVMeer" but not dated. It is unclear whether this work was commissioned, and if so, by whom. In any case, it is probably not meant as a conventional portrait. More recent Vermeer literature points to the image being a 'tronie', the Dutch 17th-century description of a ’head’ that was not meant to be a portrait. After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994 the subtle colour scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze on to the spectator has been greatly enhanced. On the advice of Victor de Stuers, who for years tried to prevent Vermeer's rare works from being sold to parties abroad, A.A. des Tombe purchased the work at an auction in The Hague in 1881 for only two guilders and thirty cents. At the time, its condition was very bad. Des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the Mauritshuis in 1902.

In 1937, a very similar painting, Smiling Girl, at the time also thought to be by Vermeer, was donated by collector Andrew W. Mellon to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It is now widely considered to be a fake. Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock claimed in a 1995 study that it is by 20th-century artist and forger Theo van Wijngaarden, a friend of Han van Meegeren Girl With a Pearl Earring, oil on canvas, c. 1670, 46.5 cm by 40 cm Painting by Johannes Vermeer. Courtesy of Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. Johannes Vermeer’s iconic Girl With a Pearl Earring has arrived at the Frick Collection in New York , drawing unprecedented crowds . We might therefore ask: Who was she? Several authors, ranging from Marcel Proust’s friend the journalist Jean-Louis Vaudoyer to New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler , have suggested she might be the artist’s eldest daughter, Maria.

Many Vermeer scholars dismiss that notion as a Romantic anachronism , a projection onto an earlier period of a modern view of art as a reflection of the artist’s circumstances. In the wake of this denial, Tracy Chevalier’s novel Girl With a Pearl Earring provided an alternative, fictional answer: She was the family maid’s assistant, Griet (played by Scarlett Johansson in the film), who became Vermeer’s love interest. But the evidence suggests Vermeer’s daughter Maria was his likely model and a crucial part of his art. More provocatively, I believe that Maria Vermeer was also a gifted artist who painted roughly one-fifth of the works currently assigned to her father. Vermeer was the greatest of the Dutch genre painters, who took their subject matter from everyday life. Rembrandt had already used himself and other family members as models for historical roles, and such models were even more appropriate for genre scenes. Another factor was the rise of optical naturalism, including the aid of the camera obscura, a forerunner of the modern photographic camera pioneered by Carel Fabritius (also represented at the Frick), Rembrandt’s most gifted student and Vermeer’s primary influence.

But Vermeer did not simply “record” the world around him; rather, he carefully crafted poetic constructions based on what he observed. The more closely he relied on the life around him, the more compelling was his art. Allegory of Painting, or Art of Painting, oil on canvas, c. 1667, 120 cm by 100 cm Painting by Johannes Vermeer. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Advertisement Vermeer himself tells us this in his Art of Painting , his visual testament to his ambitions. The composition shows a painter seated at his easel from behind, dressed in an old-fashioned Netherlandish costume, painting a young girl adorned with laurel and holding a trumpet and book. The painter is often identified as Vermeer based on his comparable hair and costume in his Procuress of 1656. Get Slate in your inbox. Since 1949, the girl has been called Clio, the muse of history writing, following the conventional notion that history was the highest category of art. But the mature Vermeer did not paint history.

Scholars have also mistranslated documents in which Vermeer’s widow and mother-in-law described a painting “in which ‘Painting’ is being depicted [uytgebeeld, which also means performed as a role, or personified as a character on stage].” The girl personifies Painting [Pictura], holding attributes associated with Painting, while others are arrayed on the table before her. These include a blue and yellow “garment of changing color,” likely the same textile artfully wrapped around her head as Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, who therefore might also personify Painting. In neither case does she take her job very seriously. In place of “high” historical or allegorical content, Vermeer characterizes Painting through his playful relation to his model as a particular individual that he knows intimately. As a painter of modern life, Vermeer’s greatness lies in the domestic, familial character of his art. It is the more conservative scholars who apply an anachronistic, premodern paradigm of art as illustrating an institutional (historical) message. Vermeer was instead a pioneer of the modern paradigm of art as expressing the artist’s unique circumstances, experiences, and sensibilities, a paradigm first articulated in texts from the Romantic period.

The same period witnessed the founding of the modern discipline of art history, which began to gather individual artists’ oeuvres, relevant facts about their lives, and diverse interpretations of their works, and first “discovered” Vermeer as an unrecognized genius. We continue to pursue these goals today. Surprisingly, given the number of monographs devoted to Vermeer’s relatively few paintings , no scholar put forward an account of his gradual painting-by-painting development before my 2009 book . Several authors identified the figures who appear repeatedly in his compositions as Vermeer, his wife, his gradually ageing eldest daughters Maria and Elisabeth (Lijsbeth), and even the family maid in Vermeer’s Milkmaid (the suggestion of the historian J.M. Montias and likely inspiration for Chevalier). But no one sought to address Vermeer’s use of family models in a systematic way, and some rejected the possibility altogether. Advertisement In his Art of Painting, Young Woman With a Pearl Necklace , and Girl With a Pearl Earring, scholars recognized the same beautiful young model who resembles Vermeer’s wife in earlier compositions.

Maria was born around 1654 and would have been 13, 15, and 16 if the paintings in question are dated 1667, 1669, and 1670, respectively. The plainer model in Vermeer’s Girl Writing, Girl With a Guitar, and Lacemaker, who resembles Vermeer in his dated self-portraits, would have been his second daughter, Lijsbeth. Another crucial dimension involves roughly a fifth of the paintings currently assigned to Vermeer—five in New York City alone—that were based on the same models, objects, and interiors and adapt or combine elements of Vermeer’s compositions but do not correspond to his level of technical mastery, characteristic approaches, or logical development. The failure to identify these “misfit” paintings, which possess their own divergent appeal, has precluded the recognition of Vermeer’s painting-by-painting development and vice versa. Dates now assigned to Vermeer's paintings are also often too early, because they are not based on a painting-by-painting account of his development, include the misfit paintings, and do not take into consideration his models and their approximate ages.

Earlier authors had questioned each of these misfits as possibly painted by a pupil or one of his children but did not pursue that possibility or the paintings as a group. Vermeer did not register any pupils, but his follower could have been one of his children, whom he did not need to register, most plausibly Maria. Two misfits, Mistress and Maid in the Frick Collection and Woman With a Lute , were also traded against a huge debt to a baker after the deaths of Vermeer and his patron, who bought Vermeer’s Lacemaker, his last painting. That is, the paintings were sold and possibly produced as forgeries to alleviate the family’s financial straits. Maria’s apprenticeship must therefore have been a family secret. Perhaps partly because of these circumstances, she does not appear to have pursued painting after her marriage and her father’s death. Girl With the Red Hat, oil on panel, c. 1672, 23.2 cm by 18.1 cm Painting by Maria Vermeer? Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Most intriguingly, two of the misfit paintings, Girl With a Flute and Girl With a Red Hat , have been associated with or even identified as self-portraits, and together with a third, Girl Interrupted , also in the Frick, appear to portray the same model as Girl With a Pearl Earring. Since the Frick paintings cannot travel, the present exhibition offers the only possibility of comparing the originals in proximity. Did Maria portray herself in these works? If so, despite her technical challenges, she surpassed her father in psychological intimacy. Girl With a Red Hat, which would portray her at about 18 around 1672, also offers an astounding virtuoso display, including what may be the most fascinating (albeit implausible) headgear in the history of art. Her precocious masterpiece, if that is what it is, further mirrors and thereby transforms our experience of her father’s earlier Girl With a Pearl Earring as not just a pretty face or even an image of Vermeer’s daughter, but a portrait—another portrait—of the artist as a young woman. These ideas, the subject of an all-day symposium at the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University last spring, are admittedly speculations.

Yet no one has previously sought to identify the models in these paintings in a systematic way, account for the misfit paintings, or explain Vermeer’s painting-by-painting development. These factors are inextricably linked in the ongoing process of understanding Vermeer’s work, including Girl With a Pearl Earring and might ultimately lead to the discovery of another unrecognized genius. Update, Oct. 30, 2013: Due to an editing error, captions for the three paintings in this piece featured the dates commonly believed to be the original dates of Vermeer’s work. We have updated the captions to reflect Binstock’s theory of their order. Benjamin Binstock is a specialist in Renaissance and Baroque art and art historical method. He is completing a book on young Rembrandt.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting: Small - DA1441 - Design Toscano Home > Wall Decor > Framed Art > Historical > The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), in the Hague, Mauritshuis Like a painted jewel, Dutchman Vermeer's young woman is the embodiment of gentleness and delicacy, her identity a mystery to all. Known for adept composition and the evanescent shades of cool, silvery light that suffuse his works, the artist is unparalleled as a Dutch genre painter. The authentic stretched canvas replica painting captures the original work's texture, depth of color, and even its bold brushstrokes, which are applied by hand exclusively for Design Toscano. Our replica European style, bright gold-toned, ribbed frame is cast in quality designer resin with an acanthus leaf and floret border that draws the eye toward the beautiful image. Small: 22"Wx25.5"H. framed (14"Wx17.5"H.

image size, 4"W. frame) Medium: 26.5"Wx31"H. framed (18.5"Wx23"H. image size, 4"W. frame) Large: 34"Wx40"H. framed (26"Wx32"H. image size, 4"W. frame) Grande: 44"Wx52"H. framed (36"Wx44"H. image size, 4"W. frame) The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting: Large $349.00 This item will be custom made for you. Materials required for the creation of your item are in stock. Please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery! DA1444 The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting: Grande $449.00 This item will be custom made for you. Materials required for the creation of your item are in stock. Please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery!

DA1441 The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting: Small $199.00 This item will be custom made for you. Materials required for the creation of your item are in stock. Please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery! DA1442 The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Canvas Replica Painting: Medium $279.00 This item will be custom made for you. Materials required for the creation of your item are in stock. Please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery! Rated 5 out of 5 by 1 reviewer. Rated 5 out of 5 by liplady1 love it my husband purchased this for me for xmas, i wanted as soon as i seen it in the catalogue, my reason being, this is my face. if i were to dress the same way you would understand, all i can say is this could [possibly be a relative. not sure though. so i have a lot of curiosity for this painting. even my husband said thatwhen i'm not here he looks at the painting and it is like i am with him. thanks for having this item it means alot to me.

even if i find out that i am not related to the girl with the pearl earing. September 18, 2012 2017-01-17 Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer Facts & History 17.5 in × 15 in 44.5 cm × 39 cm The Girl with a Pearl Earring by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer is one his major masterpieces. The focal point of the painting is the reflective pearl earring. The painting was first called Girl with a Turban but was renamed in the second part of the twentieth century. Some believe the real focal point of the painting is the way the girls’ eyes interact with the person viewing the painting. Vermeer had never have identified any sitter posing for any of his portraits and that includes the young woman who posed for the Girl with a Pearl Earring painting. Some art critics have stated that the girl may have been one of Vermeer’s daughters named Maria. Maria would be approximately 12 or 13 years old at the time Vermeer created his masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Several of Vermeer’s paintings have similar facial features to the Girl with a Pearl Earring, but due to the different poses and lighting in the various paintings comparisons are difficult to establish. Girl with a Pearl Earring is located in the Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague. Some have called this painting the Mona Lisa of the North and some have called it the Dutch Mona Lisa. The signature on the painting is signed “IVMeer” and it is does not have a date on it. This painting is the best-loved painting by Vermeer possibly because of the way the girl is looking over her shoulder, which draws the attention from the viewer, giving a feeling her head turns to see the viewer. The women in Vermeer’s paintings were usually depicted in a deep thought-provoking poses that speaks to the uniformity in his subjects. The light effects and the highlights on the turban on the girls’ head are a trademark that belongs to Vermeer. The pearl is made up of no more than two brushstrokes, with the girl gazing with uninhibited, wide eyes, making her appear lost in thought. Girl with a Pearl Earring was painted as oil on canvas that measured 17.5 inches by 15 inches.

The dark background of the painting helped to create a three-dimensional feeling to the subject of the painting. This was a Dutch custom used by Vermeer in his some of his paintings. The use of green ochre tone was used by Vermeer as an undercoating in the painting that made colors of the figure more vibrant. His skill with under painting created this three-dimensional look and the girl’s skin contrasts with the background, creating a glowing effect. Vermeer’s use of light was dramatized by the white-based undercoat that intensified the reflective surfaces of the pearl earring as well as the eyes and lips of the girl in the painting. The girl’s dress is enhanced by the use of the undercoating that gives a realistic impression of the actual material in the painting. A thin final layer on the painting adds movement to the work as light moves across the painting.

6 responses to “Girl with a Pearl Earring” Alina Vermeer's mysterious 'Girl' is back in the USA FacebookEmail Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest Vermeer's mysterious 'Girl' is back in the USA Vermeer's 1665 classic, 'Girl With a Pearl Earring,' returns to the USA after nearly 20 years, bowing at San Francisco's de Young Museum as part of a collection of Dutch masterpieces. Post to Facebook Vermeer's mysterious 'Girl' is back in the USA Vermeer's 1665 classic, 'Girl With a Pearl Earring,' returns to the USA after nearly 20 years, bowing at San Francisco's de Young Museum as part of a collection of Dutch masterpieces. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. 8 To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs Vermeer's mysterious 'Girl' is back in the USA Marco della Cava, USA TODAY Published 2:58 p.m. ET Jan. 16, 2013 | Updated 7:42 p.m.

ET Jan. 16, 2013 CLOSE x Share Celebrated in book and movie form, Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' comes back to the USA after nearly 20 years away. Rene Alston, Grover Sanschagrin Celebrated in book and movie form, Vermeer's 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' comes back to the USA after nearly 20 years away. 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' will be on exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco Jan. 26 to June 2. (Photo: Mauritshuis) Story Highlights Vermeer's small masterpiece is expected to attract large crowds at its U.S. debut in San Francisco 1665's 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' went mainstream with a 1999 novel and 2003 film of the same name De Young Museum president Wilsey wants the Mona Lisa next: 'Why not?' SAN FRANCISCO — She sits in the dark, waiting. A man at each side lifts her into position. A veil is lifted; staring at you is the Girl With a Pearl Earring. Inviting yet distant. Familiar yet unknowable.

The gasps were audible as one of the world's most recognizable paintings — created in 1665 by Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer and in recent years the inspiration for a novel and film of the same name — was unveiled for workers and special patrons of the de Young Museum Tuesday night. For art lovers, this moment was the World Series, Super Bowl and Masters rolled into one magic moment. It is the first time in nearly 20 years that the modest, 17-by-15-inch portrait has visited the USA, which will include stops in Atlanta and New York later this year. "She's known as the Dutch Mona Lisa, and like that work, the fascination we have with her is endless," says Dede Wilsey, one of this city's leading philanthropists and president of the de Young, which will host Girl With a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis from Jan. 26 to June 2.

"Besides, every woman with a pearl earring always thinks, 'How come mine doesn't look as good as that?' " Wilsey spearheaded the push to win over the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in the Hague, whose renovation precipitated the loan of this Vermeer and 34 other permanent collection masterpieces from the Golden Age of Dutch painting, including works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Carel Fabritius. Wilsey's track record luring King Tut's gold and Picasso gems here helped the cause, and she's gunning for the one-and-only Mona Lisa next. "Why not?" she says with a wink of a work that hasn't been in the USA since the 1960s, when Jackie Kennedy lured the lovely Italian to Washington, D.C. "We set up our museum to accommodate very special exhibits, including the dedication of one gallery to an entire painting if necessary." "The girl" — as everyone here calls the Vermeer classic — has her own room at the de Young. Bathed in a soft light, the image is almost photographic. Up close, one can't help but marvel at the deceptive simplicity of this work.

A young girl emerges from darkness, facing away from the painter but looking over her shoulder in his direction. Her lips are slightly parted. Her hair has vanished under a blue and yellow turban that would not have been a common fashion of the day. And there, hanging from her left ear, is a large pearl earring, a delicate dollop of white paint that rivets the viewer like a full moon. "It's more than just a beautiful girl who was beautifully painted," says Emilie Gordenker, director of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, noting that nearly 1.2 million visitors saw the painting during its stop in Japan. "She begs a question with her look. She asks you to fill in her story." Novelist Tracy Chevalier did just that in her 1999 historical novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring, in which Vermeer becomes close to a servant named Griet. (The Mauritshuis often gets visitors asking, "Where's Griet?") The 2003 movie version starred Scarlett Johansson as the object of the painter's affection and helped catapult the painting into the cultural mainstream.

"Everyone's probably seen the image somewhere, in posters or on T-shirts, but frankly it's not the same as looking up close," says Robin Cembalest, executive editor of ARTnews magazine. "If you're lucky enough to see it in person, just look in her eyes and take it from there." Vermeer painted fewer than 40 works in his lifetime, but he was a seminal figure in a group of artistic all-stars that redefined the role of art. Prior to the 17th century, most artists idealized their subjects and settings, often taking their stylistic cues and patronage from the church. What Vermeer, Rembrandt and other Dutch painters did was produce tableaux of everyday people and quotidian street scenes, thereby elevating the dignity of the ordinary citizen while at the same time providing a record of public life during an extremely rich and exploratory phase of Dutch history. "It was a dynamic time with an explosion of innovation, including in art," Gordenker says. "Not only did the subject matter change from the religious to the secular, but so did the scale. Paintings got smaller because they were meant to hang in homes.

Combine that with extreme painterly skill and you get works that are still relevant today." Those include a number of paintings in this Girl exhibit, including Rembrandt's Portrait of an Elderly Man, which rejects the rigors of formal portraiture, and Fabritius' The Goldfinch, a stark and faintly modernist rendition of a pet bird. On Tuesday night, the remaining works of this exhibit were hung under the watchful eyes of Julian Cox, chief curator of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the de Young and Legion of Honor. Given the incalculable value of the art in question, countless procedures were in place to ensure their safety. That started with each Dutch masterwork traveling in its own crate, which actually looks more like a finely wrought piece of furniture. Although insurance is taken out on such priceless pieces, measures included sending the paintings on multiple international flights and in various transport vans. Girl got no special treatment in order to help her not stand out.

But "rest assured, for an exhibit like this, and with a star painting like Girl With a Pearl Earring, all precautions are being taken," says Cox, adding that Girl will feature a transparent barrier — like the Mona Lisa — to guard against accidental or deliberate damage. But tonight she is naked, nothing separating her gaze from yours. Wilsey and a few other distinguished visitors cautiously approach the painting as if tip-toeing up to a newborn. One woman comments on the elegant drape of the turban; another the dizzyingly large size of the pearl. Then someone asks whether the girl would have worn lipstick, the only apparent explanation for her lush red lips. "No," Wilsey says with a sigh. "That's just the moistness of youth." 691 CONNECT TWEET 5 LINKEDIN 8 COMMENTEMAILMORE Read or Share this story: NEVER MISS OUT Life Be a pop culture maven. Get the news, reviews and the juiciest celebrity stories that keep you in the know, Monday-Friday. Johannes Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) - YouTube Johannes Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) Want to watch this again later?

Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Oct 22, 2014 By watching this video you'll learn the major facts about 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' by Dutch baroque artist Johannes Vermeer. The painting will be visually analyzed and the common interpretations are explained. 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' is one of the most famous works of Western Art. What makes this painting so special are it's luminosity, it's bright colors, the exotic elements and above all the enigmatic appearance of the girl. References to this painting: 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', a movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth, based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier; Banksy's 'Girl with the Pierced Eardrum'.

Category 10 things you might like to know about Girl with a Pearl Earring | The Netherlands by numbers The Netherlands by numbers People, habits, things, places – you name it, we list it Menu Leave a reply Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) has been voted ‘the most beautiful Dutch painting’ and described as ‘timeless, like the Mona Lisa’. She’s also a massive money-spinner and features on anything from bikes to baggage. Here’s 10 key facts. 1 It’s not a pearl For starters, the pearl is not a pearl. A pearl of that size would simply not have been available to Vermeer. The painting didn’t acquire the name until 1995. Before then she was simply a ‘Tronie’, or a head or face, ‘Girl with Turban’, or ‘Head of a Girl’. Experts at the Mauritshuis think she may be wearing a Venetian bauble of varnished glass which was fashionable at the time while astronomer Vincent Icke opts for polished tin, which would also explain the shine. 2 Who’s that girl? Nobody knows. She could be Vermeer’s daughter who was around twelve in 1665.

Others put the date of the painting at 1655, putting Vermeer’s young wife of two years– literally – in the frame. Perhaps she was simply an anonymous model. According to Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering most artists preferred actual models for their ‘Tronies’, so it is probably safe to conclude that whoever she was, she was not a figment of Vermeer’s imagination. 3 What does it mean? If the painting was meant to showcase the artist’s mastery at depicting emotion as some art critics have it, the Girl with a Pearl Earring does not give much away. But perhaps that is the point. 4 The source of the blue The headband of the turban is painted in Vermeer’s iconic blue. Although poor he used the very expensive natural ultramarine or crushed lapis lazuli in most of his paintings. In 2012 when the Rijksmuseum restored ‘Woman in Blue reading a Letter’ it found a layer of copper green paint underneath, which gave the blue extra depth. 5 How did the girl end up in the Mauritshuis?

In 1902 the painting, along with 12 others, was bequeathed to the Mauritshuis by army officer and art collector Arnoldus Andries Des Tombe who bought it at auction for two guilders in 1881. The Mauritshuis unfortunately managed to lose the original invoice. 6 Who painted it? Girl with a Pearl Earring is among some 30 odd paintings attributed to Vermeer. Little is known about the artist- nicknamed the Sphinx of Delft – and many of his paintings went unsigned (although not this one: the signature is in the upper left hand corner) . Documents of the period contain descriptions which – tantalizingly – refer to paintings that are lost or perhaps remain hidden in an attic. 7 Who copied it? The girl features on hundreds of souvenirs and in hundreds of parodies. Even Marge Simpson has posed as her. In 2014 elusive graffiti artist Banksy painted Girl with a Pierced Eardrum on a wall in Bristol. It was defaced hours after it was discovered. 8 What has it influenced? Vermeer’s life and times spawned a multitude of novels.

One of the best-known is Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring which was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson as Vermeer and his model – she’s a servant in this version. 9 Did Vermeer like women? The women in Vermeer’s paintings outnumber the men: women are depicted 40 times while men only put in an appearance 14 times. Not that it matters. 10 Where has she been? Although Vermeer was probably not known very far beyond his native Delft, his Girl with a Pearl Earring has travelled extensively. Up to until now she’s been to Paris, Washington, Osaka, Tokyo, Kobe, San Francisco and Atlanta. Share this:

Question: Who painted 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' in 1665?
Answer: Johannes Vermeer